


Oxygen Mask + Left for Dead

by Agib



Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Light Angst, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26984971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agib/pseuds/Agib
Summary: There is a young man in the room, miles younger than their unsub and chained by one shackled ankle to the foot of the lab table. From all the way across the room, the both of them can make out the lesions and wheezy breathing.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Derek Morgan, Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid
Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945771
Comments: 2
Kudos: 160
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Oxygen Mask + Left for Dead

“Last night, twenty-five people checked into emergency rooms. They were all at the same park yesterday after two P.M. Within ten hours the first victim died, we now have twelve dead.”

“Anthrax?” Morgan asks seriously, looking up from his page of victim photographs to meet JJ and Hotch’s eyes. The two of them nod grimly, and Morgan shakes his head in disappointment for the case about to come. “Media blackout?” He asks.

“Yes, all information that gets put out needs to come through JJ or me. We’d have a mass exodus otherwise.”

Prentiss looks distressed, surprised more than anything else.

“The psychology and group panic will cause more deaths than this attack,” Rossi explains. She nods, still looking less than neutral on the topic.

“These spores are weaponized, reduced to a respiral ideal that attacks deep in the lungs - odourless and invisible.” Doctor Kimura describes.

“Our best chance of protecting the public will be to form a profile as quickly as possible,” Hotch says.

“A sophisticated strain of Anthrax, only a scientist would know how to create this,” Rossi guesses. Kimura nods a confirmation.

“It’s the lungs I’m worried about, we don’t know how to combat the toxins once they’re inside,” the woman admits, gesturing between the CT scans and the lesions visible on each patient.

“Our offices will become a small command centre for the officers and scientists at Fort Detrick,” Hotch explains, letting the team glance out the window into the bullpen to watch the men unpacking their gear as Hotch divvies out jobs. “There’s Cipro, everybody needs to take it before we go, alright?”

“We don’t know for sure whether it’s effective against this strain, but it’s better than nothing,” Doctor Kimura says.

“This is really happening,” Prentiss says.

“We knew that this could happen. We’ve done our homework; we’ve prepared for this. This is it,” Hotch says with an air of finality.

Prentiss and Rossi are sent with a hazmat team to the dump site where the first case was released to the public.

They struggle to find how a park holds significant meaning for their unsub, considering all other Anthrax attacks in the past few decades have involved a personal vendetta.

“We know Kaczynski sent bombs to Berkely where he taught, Michigan where he went to school, and Chicago where he lived.” Rossi lists.

“The Amerithrax suspect sent letters to two pro-choice senators whose politics he opposed. They can’t help attaching a personal motive to the places they’ve targeted.”

Meanwhile Morgan is speaking with Doctor Kimura about the victims and their infections. The strain is duplicating every half hour, poisoning the lungs, causing massive haemorrhaging and organ failure. Extreme bacterial amplification.

“Okay so whoever created this had to, at some point, go through the trouble of testing it.”

“What do you mean?” The doctor asks. “How can you be sure?”

“Think about the way doctors work their way up to human testing. They start with rodents, advance to larger mammals and then at some point do a small trial run with real people,” he explains. “There’s no way this was the first human test run,” he says confidently.

“We would have heard about a previous anthrax attack,” Kimura points out.

“Not if it presented as something else,” Morgan says.

\----

“Morgan, Garcia patched you through. You’re on with me, Rossi and JJ,” Hotch says. 

“Kimura made some calls. It turns out about two days ago there were two people in separate Baltimore ER’s and one in a Philadelphia ER. They slipped into comas and died suddenly. The official cause of death was Meningitis,” he explains quickly.

“They present symptoms we’re seeing now?” JJ asks.

“No, but only because they died within three hours of admittance, there was no time to develop lesions. Kimura spoke with me, and if they inhaled a higher concentration of the strain it would cause an accelerated death.”

“Organ failure without exterior physical symptoms,” Kimura says through Morgan’s line.

“I’m going to send a team to the common denominator location, good work Morgan, we’re getting somewhere,” Hotch compliments.

\----

Two hours in and they already have a suspect, a doctor by the name of Lawrence Nichols who sent threatening letters to the board when his research grant was denied under claims that it wasn’t relevant to the Anthrax research already underway. All it took was working out that none of the attacks made so far were symbolically significant, meaning they had to be personal. They delivered a brief profile and had a hit from a colleague at the place of the supposed first attack.

“January second, classified hearing with the subcommittee on defence and homeland security. Doctor Lawrence Nichols used to work at our institute. He left in two-thousand-seven, well… he was forced out after multiple students complained of his aggressive ministrations during their unit on Anthrax spores.”

“He worked at Caltech until his departure earlier this year,” their informant explains.

Hotch assigns Morgan to investigate the man’s house with him while Prentiss and Rossi take the lab at his workplace after viewing the recordings of the hearing in which their doctor argued for fifty billion dollars.

The poison, according to Doctor Kimura, was infecting the parietal lobe, causing Aphasia, and rendering the current surviving victims useless to interview considering their newfound inability to speak coherently. There was nothing to do but investigate both the professor’s lab and home.

“Keep me posted, be safe,” Hotch orders. Prentiss nods, following along behind Rossi.

\----

They’re prepared to enter Nichols’ home when Rossi calls to say they have nothing at the man’s old lab, it’s been cleaned out.

“We’ll need a hazmat team for his home then,” Morgan says. Hotch nods in agreement.

Doctor Kimura helps them suit up, and by the time they’re crossing the threshold they already know they’re going to find what they need.

“He won’t have it hidden, per se, but he will keep it out of sight of any typical visitor.”

“Check downstairs,” Morgan says, only slightly muffled through the suit. 

The basement door is locked from the outside by a deadbolt, which only makes them more cautious when they finally break in to find a functioning lab.

There are test tubes and various powders spread across the surface of a desk, multiple papers and formulae scattered around the room, but the Anthrax was perhaps only the second most concerning aspect of the makeshift lab.

There is a young man in the room, miles younger than their unsub and chained by one shackled ankle to the foot of the lab table. From all the way across the room, the both of them can make out the lesions and wheezy breathing.

“We need medical assistance ASAP,” Hotch radios. “Sir?”

“Jesus, Hotch, that’s a kid,” Morgan says once they’re crouched by his side, suits crinkling as they bend at the knee. “Kid, can you hear me?”

“Potomac,” the kid forces out, coughing heavily soon after. “...‘re they ok’y?”

“The park? You know about that?”

“H - He,” the kid devolves into another fit of coughing, his chest heaving each time as he attempts to suck air in. “Pr’fess’r Nichols…”

“Easy, hey,” Derek says seriously, propping the kid further upright so he could get a breath in edgewise. “We’ve got a professional team on their way, they’re making their way downstairs now, take it easy.”

“N - n… antid’te’s upstairs, need it,” the kid says defiantly. “Ple’se.”

When Derek reaches out to steady him as he sways weakly, he notices the shivering. The boy’s been hosed down already. He exchanges a glance with Hotch, who also notes the preventative action that had clearly been forced onto the kid.

His teeth chatter while Doctor Kimura orders a stretcher down the steps and into the room.

“Morgan, find the antidote the kid was talking about upstairs, I’ll help get him to the ambulance.”

The boy is becoming less and less coherent, what once was  _ I didn’t want to _ has now become _ d’n w’nto. _

Hotch profiles the situation as he cuts through the leg of the table, propping it up with a hardcover as not to disturb the evidence as one of Kimura’s helpers slides the shackle off the leg and begins to prep the boy for relocation.

“He’s been hosed down by the looks of things,” he explains as the doctor transports her newest patient up throughout the house.

“Check this, it’s the only other medication I could find inside,” Derek says breathlessly. He’s torn the office apart looking for an antidote, an inhaler clutched in his hand.

“Good, we’ll have a technician test it before administration,” Kimura says. 

The boy is being loaded into the ambulance by the time Hotch has gained his bearings enough to send Morgan along with him.

“He was left for dead, he’s the only reliable witness we’ll have and the only person who could conceivably help us find Doctor Nichols. Go with them, get any information you can and do  _ not  _ leave his side.” Hotch’s order is firm and hard-pressed, his eyes lock onto Derek’s as the kid is shuffled into place on a gurney and hooked up to an oxygen mask through soft, jumbled words and gibberish.

“Go find him,” Morgan says, knowing Hotch will stay behind to analyse the home.

\----

“How are you feeling?” Doctor Kimura asks, leaning to readjust the kid’s oxygen mask.

“Flee - feel fin. I feel - I fleel fin - I -”

“Driver, faster,” she says hurriedly.

“Alright, kid,” Derek tries. He reaches out one hand, to which Kimura shakes her head.

\----

By the time the cure is cleared for usage, the kid - whose name is Spencer, according to Penelope who worked through missing persons records for the past year matching his description - is dropping in and out of severely confused and disorientated states in the ER.

He’s gone into respiratory distress when they rush the antidote into him, he’s completely unconscious from the morphine and hooked up to both an oxygen mask, an IV and a heart monitor as he flutters in and out of critical condition.

When he wakes, Derek is there.

“... ‘re you eating Jell-O?”

“Mmm, hey kid.”

Turns out Spencer is Doctor Spencer Reid from Caltech too, with three PhDs under his belt and a third Bachelor in progress.

He’s upset at how long he had been held in Nichols’ basement for and holds armfuls of guilt for the enhanced strain he was blackmailed into refining and creating. He pales sickeningly when Kimura lets slip that only four of the twenty-five park victims survived.

“Hey,” Derek says seriously. “Not your fault, not at all, okay?”

The boy nods shakily, sucking in a deep breath and fiddling with his nose cannula as Derek confers with Hotch over the phone.

“They got Nichols, okay? Nothing else was released.”

The relief that burns in the kid’s eyes is heart-warming, and as he sags into the mattress Derek allows himself to squeeze the boy’s shoulder gently in compassion.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)
> 
> my heart goes <3<3<3 when anyone sends asks


End file.
